Let me lean hard upon the unfailing Arm.
I said I will walk on, I fear no harm,
The spark divine within my soul will show
The upward pathway where my feet should go.
But now the heights to which I most aspire
Are lost in clouds. I stumble and I tire:
Let me lean hard.
Let me lean harder yet. That swerveless force
Which speeds the solar systems on their course
Can take, unfelt, the burden of my woe,
Which bears me to the dust and hurts me so.
I thought my strength enough for any fate,
But lo! I sink beneath my sorrow's weight:
Let me lean hard.
PENALTY.
Because of the fullness of what I had
All that I have seems void and vain.
If I had not been happy I were not sad;
Though my salt is savorless, why complain?
From the ripe perfection of what was mine,
All that is mine seems worse than naught;
Yet I know as I sit in the dark and pine,
No cup could be drained which had not been fraught.
From the throb and thrill of a day that was,
The day that now is seems dull with gloom;
Yet I bear its dullness and darkness because
'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom.
From the royal feast which of old was spread
I am starved on the diet which now is mine;
Yet I could not turn hungry from water and bread,
If I had not been sated on fruit and wine.